reading: the death and life of the great lakes (dan eagan)

notes bookshop link recommended: yes more in the vein of my conservation kick. honestly, i have under appreciated the level of systems thinking that takes place in the world of wildlife biology. this is a fascinating rundown on the various ecological disasters that we’ve been stumbling through as we carve the st. lawrence seaway, reverse the river in chicago and engage in various bits of fishery hijinks in the south....

February 1, 2024 · steve ulrich

losing snow

my winter climate malaise "The feeling of losing snow", in the the atlantic hit a little close to home for me. this has been an unseasonably warm winter for us. to be fair, we’d been expecting a little warmer weather this winter. el nino had us expecting that it would be a bit warmer than usual. but road biking on christmas day in Minnesota was not on my bingo card. that it’s january 14th and i’m thrilled to have what little dusting of snow and subzero temperatures we’re currently experiencing is kind of shocking to me....

January 14, 2024 · steve ulrich

reading: the future of the responsible company ...

The Future of the Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned from Patagonia’s First 50 Years (Yvon Chouinard, Vincent Stanley) i snarfed this down in a couple of hours on the plane. it’s no secret that i’m a bit of a fanboy. they seem to walk the walk and this was a remarkably compelling read in a few areas. it’s a reasonably unsparing account of the stuff that Patagonia ran into while they were cleaning up their business....

January 10, 2024 · steve ulrich

reading: green earth (kim stanley robinson)

notes bookshop link recommended: yes this was a tome, and it kept getting just a few pages at a time in terms of grinding through it. it wasn’t really a grind to read, it was simply so large that i couldn’t bring myself to travel with it over the past month or so. this is actually 3 books pulled together into a single volume. i think it’s call the “science in the capital” series and it’s kind of early KSR cli-fi....

January 8, 2024 · steve ulrich

reading: liberty's daughter (naomi kritzer)

notes bookshop link recommended: yes what happens when you’re living on a libertarian sea-stead? this is a fun bit of world building where libertarian ideals are allowed to fester to their logical conclusions. the limitations of the invisible hand, the likely devolution into some form of slavery for those who aren’t wealthy and have problems. unregulated medical care, having to hire private security to just go about your day-to-day business, and all sorts of goodies....

January 3, 2024 · steve ulrich